Supporting Student Success in Rural Arkansas

For four years, the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), along with the Walton Family Foundation have partnered to improve teaching and learning in rural districts through the Arkansas Rural Educator Network (AREN). The goal of the partnership is to build educator capacity in rural school districts through customized professional learning and networking opportunities between participants.

AREN currently serves 23 districts across Arkansas and focuses on building instructional leadership, strengthening instruction, and advancing the implementation of high-quality curriculum through training & personalized coaching. A new study found that AREN is impacting teacher performance and student growth, and included the following highlights:

 To learn more about AREN's impact in Arkansas and how NIET helped partners succeed, read the full research brief here.

NIET has partnered with schools, districts, states, and universities to ensure all students have effective educators for more than 20 years. Its work to develop teacher leaders, support successful instructional strategies, and build educator capacity to address student needs has served more than 9,000 schools and has impacted more than 300,000 teachers and 3 million students.